All Drummers Great and Small

BBC Four started a repeat run of The Box of Delights yesterday. I have fond but vague memories of the programme from its first broadcast -- 40 years ago! -- and I was excited to see it again. I'll maybe talk about it another time, as it ticks a lot of boxes for me: ancient British magic, mischievous hobo-wizards, time travel, snow and winter, wolves! It has some thematic crossover with Susan Cooper's The Dark is Rising, another childhood favourite that I should revisit at some point.

The real point of this post is what came after. BBC Four followed up with a 1978 episode of All Creatures Great and Small, and I hadn't seen that in years either so I left it on to see what it was like with adult eyes, and... it's really strange. If you haven't seen it, it's a gentle comedy-drama about a veterinary practice in rural Yorkshire in the 1930s, which is already quite niche for a prime-time show, but -- and I assume this is because it's the BBC and the BBC's public service remit means there has to be at least a token attempt at education -- it's also full of graphic on-camera medical procedures. Imagine tuning in on a Sunday evening, perhaps after your Sunday roast, and then watching Doctor Who trying to remember his lines while up to the shoulder -- and this is the actor, mind you, not a double -- in a cow's backside.

Still, it was massively popular, got millions of viewers, and seemed to run for years -- although now that I look it up, it had two three-year runs separated by a decade -- but what I want to talk about is the theme music. I had a memory of a gentle but jolly piano theme in keeping with the Sunday night broadcast. and that's sort of what it is, but what surprised me last night was how hard the drummer goes:



Alas the theme is only about a minute long; the drummer was just getting going!

Always Daring and Courageous

Although I was just about the right age for it, for some reason Star Fleet/X-Bomber passed me by. Which is a shame, as it spawned glorious stuff like this, from Brian "Badgers" May and Eddie "Van Halen" Van Halen:

Danger Illustrated

I last saw The Prodigy in 1998, I think, at a chilly Reading Festival. I always meant to see them again at some point, but I never got around to it.

Thanks for all the mad clowning, Keith.

Less-Than-Three Harpsichords

You Must Gather Your Godzilla Before Venturing Forth

2000:



2014:



All of which is to say that I've played far too much Baldur's Gate II in my time and that I'm very excited about the new Godzilla.

Blake's Harrier

1985:



1978:

Jetpack Blues

Love Song for a Time Lord

Sod Lady Gaga ripping off Tarantino and Japanese TV, this is better:

Yayayayaya...ya!

My Town

I don't tend to do music posts. I'm not an erudite musichead like Rol; I discovered The Smiths twenty years after the fact, as a particularly embarrassing example. I tend to like stuff no one else does (but not Country, because even I'm not that out of touch), so I don't really feel like I have much to blog about music.

My mate Bob knows a fair bit though, and he's in a band and everything. They've just released a single, which you can buy on iTunes, Amazon, and Napster, apparently, although I had no idea Napster was still going. I quite like it (the song, not Napster), although I think there are better tracks on the upcoming album, and one stonking song that the Reverence haven't recorded for some unfathomable reason, perhaps so that they can release Japanese-exclusive bootleg live albums later on.

Anyway, you can see the video for the song at the band's website, and if you like the song, it's only seventy-nine of your English pence.

It's not Country.

All You Need is Love(craft)

Is it just me, or is "Octopus's Garden" a Deep One hymn to Father Cthulhu?

Let Down

So why is it that iTunes can't find album artwork for OK Computer? Seeing as it tends to jockey for top position with Revolver in pretty much every Top 100 album rundown ever published, it's hardly an obscure release.

Then again, I haven't checked to see whether it's heard of Revolver...

Pet Shop Heroes

The original Transformers movie has become quite famous as my geeky brethren have taken over the pop culture agenda of the world, but there was also a considerably less popular movie outing for the Transformers' friends GI Joe. Here's the typically bombastic opening to the movie:


Of course, when I saw (and owned) it, it was under the British title of Action Force, complete with a new theme tune, less gruff and "manly" and a bit more... well, Pet Shop Boys:

Haven't we met before?

I think that even if we disagree concerning the merits of Casino Royale, we can all agree that the theme tune was naff. Paul Hartnoll has a better idea, and it's called Haven't we met before.